<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>hold me fast and fear me not by starry_eyed_guttersnipe</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29600172">hold me fast and fear me not</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/starry_eyed_guttersnipe/pseuds/starry_eyed_guttersnipe'>starry_eyed_guttersnipe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Castiel is Saved (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Saves Castiel from the Empty, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Season/Series 15, The Empty (Supernatural), and therefore so is Dean</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:14:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,854</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29600172</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/starry_eyed_guttersnipe/pseuds/starry_eyed_guttersnipe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Only a human soul can leave the Empty. Jack gets Dean in, but to get Cas out, he’ll have to hold his grace through all of its forms until it settles into the shape of a human soul and can pass back through the rift.</p><p>  <em>He catches himself, and locks his right hand around his left wrist, keeping the impossibility of Castiel drawn close within the circle of his arms. “I’m not letting go,” he says fiercely. “Not this time. I won’t let go again.”</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel &amp; Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>hold me fast and fear me not</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>(or, Janet of Carterhaugh was a Monsterfucker and You Can, Too)</p><p>*slaps fic* this baby can fit so much self-indulgence in it</p><p>infinite thanks to the incredible <a href="/users/raccoontaire/">raccoontaire</a>, patron saint of proper em dash usage and character voice, for the fantastic beta; and to <a href="/users/hmslusitania/">hmslusitania</a>, for the early feedback and forever support.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Empty is—well. It lives up to its name. </p><p>Dean still has nightmares about Hell, sometimes, but if they’d chucked him in here instead, he’d have probably broken a damn sight sooner. There’s just—nothingness. An inky void and true silence, not even the press of awareness of the moving air that comes in an empty room. He’s been here all of ten seconds and he feels like he’s losing his damn mind. </p><p>Cas has been here a month. </p><p>He takes a deep breath. He’s a man on a mission, here. He looks down and is pleasantly surprised to find that despite the absence of light, he can see himself clearly; hopefully that means he’ll be able to see Cas. He turns to take in the lay of the (lack of) land, and is more than a little relieved to see the rift Jack had made still golden and active. Unfortunately, it’s the only <em>anything</em> to be seen, other than himself. </p><p>Right. No one had said this would be easy. Jack had insisted the opposite, in fact. </p><p>
  <em>“It’s locked itself down,” he’d said, brow furrowed. “It figured out what I did last time. I’m not going to be able to reach in and get him.” He’d turned wide, guileless eyes on Dean. “Someone will have to actually go in and bring him back.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Great,” Dean had said. Finally, a simple fucking solution. Go to Empty, get dumbass angel, get back. Straightforward. (Probably best that Sammy was busy getting settled with Eileen and not there to hear the plan, though. “Straightforward” probably wouldn’t be the word he’d use. “Foolhardy,” maybe. Or “suicidal.” What does Sam know, anyway?) “Make me a doorway, let’s do this.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s not that easy,” Jack had replied, and at least had the courtesy to look apologetic. “What I can do—it’s more of a loophole, than anything else. The Empty… it’s meant to contain angels. After I slipped past its defences, it built back stronger. It’s not made for human souls, though, not really. So that’s the rift I can make: a door that only human souls can pass through.”  </em>
</p><p><em>“Well then what good does that do us?” Dean had asked (more angrily than the kid deserved. He should really work on that; he </em>will<em> work on that, once he has Cas back, once he can fucking think again). “How the hell am I supposed to get Cas out, if an angel can’t go through the rift?”  </em></p><p>Jack had looked—there was an expression on his face Dean had never seen before, a deep sadness tinged with something he couldn’t understand. But he’d said his piece, and Dean had yelled about it and thrown more things than he should have and demanded that they find another solution, and Jack had insisted that there <em>was</em>no other solution. That it was this or nothing, that all Dean could do was find Cas and let him make his choice. </p><p>A choice. What if, after everything, the price isn’t worth it to Cas? What if he says no? </p><p>There’s no time to dwell on it. He’s awake, and that means the Shadow is, too—whether Cas is or not. He has to move fast.</p><p>He’s not afraid to run through the Empty shouting his head off if he has to, but that’s a last ditch option. Best-case scenario he gets Cas to come to him, so he doesn’t have to leave the rift behind for them to hunt down again later. So he clenches his hands tight, and he takes a deep breath, and he prays. </p><p>“Castiel. Cas. I’m praying, buddy. I’ve <em>been</em>—well. I don’t know if you could hear me from Earth, but I’m hoping you can hear me now.” His voice falls flat in this not-space; there’s no echo. “Jack sent me. I’m here to get you out of this stupid fucking mess, alright?” Something like movement out of the corner of his eye; he spins, but of course there’s nothing there. “Cas, come on, man. Don’t leave me hanging, here.” Dean swallows. “Pretty rude to run out on a guy in the middle of a conversation, you know. I’ve got words for you, you hear me? So get your feathery butt over here.”</p><p>Movement again. This time he tracks it quickly enough to see a shimmer moving through the blackness, like oil with a mind of its own. It’s gone as quickly as it came. “That can’t be good,” he mutters to himself. Then, louder, “Cas! Castiel, angel of being a pain in my ass, now would be a <em>great time</em>to make yourself fucking known, alright?!” The darts of movement are becoming more frequent, the pauses between shorter. The Empty is becoming aware of him. The clock is ticking down.</p><p>“Cas!” He’s shouting now, desperate, and takes a few strides further into the darkness. “Cas, come on man, I know you can hear me. You have to be able to hear me, because—because I need to say my piece, and I intend to say it to your stupid face! So—<em>please!</em>” He takes a deep, shuddering breath and drags a hand over his face. “Please, Cas. I need you. Just—come through for me buddy. Come through for me one more time. We’ve always beaten the odds before, right? What’s one more long shot?” Nothing. He inhales again, and presses his palms firmly against his eyes. He’s hardly aware of the last, muttered “<em>Please</em>” that crosses his lips.</p><p>Silence. </p><p>“Dean?” </p><p>He spins. </p><p>No one should be as familiar as he is with desperately drinking in the sight of someone precious you thought gone from you forever. </p><p>Cas looks just as he had the moment he was taken. He’s rumpled and tear-streaked but hale and whole, and his eyes (that <em>blue</em>) are wide, looking at Dean like <em>he’s</em> the miracle here, which—well it’s a lot to take in, alright, so it would be nice to have a <em>moment</em> to catch his fucking <em>breath</em> before Cas’ face shutters like barn doors in a hurricane.</p><p>“No,” Cas says, shaking his head and stepping back. “No, you can’t be here. You wouldn’t. This is just another trick.” He looks wildly around and takes in the shifting oil beneath their feet. “Of course. It’s been a while since you woke me to torment me—have you been sleeping poorly? <em>Good</em>.” He spits the last word like an expletive, and his eyes snap back to Dean’s, though he visibly steels himself first. “I gave myself willingly, but I hope you choke on me.” </p><p>Dean does choke at that, a little bit, and firmly tells his brain to <em>shut up</em>. It is absolutely, one hundred percent <em>not the time</em> for the place it tried to go at those words, Jesus fucking Christ. He’s sure his face is bright red as he sputters: “No—Cas, no, it’s me, it’s really me! Jack sent me, and I can get you out of here, but you have to come with me right now, okay, we don’t have time--”</p><p>Castiel barely flinches. His face is stone. “Simplistic. You will need to be more inventive if you wish to dupe me.” </p><p>Dean huffs. “Okay, genius, what about the giant glowing rift behind you?” </p><p>Seemingly despite himself, Cas turns to look. His eyes widen almost imperceptibly (but Dean has spent a lot of time perceiving those eyes, alright, he knows what he sees) and he slowly shakes his head. “That cannot be real,” he says, but Dean can hear the waver in his voice, knows what he sounds like when he’s trying to convince himself of something. “You told me yourself that it would be impossible. You took glee in telling me; and while I am certain you would take glee in tricking me as well, you will have to find your satisfaction elsewhere.” </p><p>The oil slicks are forming eddies around their feet, beginning to rise small heights and collapse again, like being in a lava lamp. They’re running out of time. </p><p>“Look,” he says desperately. “There are two possibilities, right? Either I’m the Shadow, I woke you up just to be a dick to you, the rift is fake, <em>whatever</em> ; or I’m really <em>me</em> and I’m here to rescue you and if we don’t move <em>now</em> , that’s it. If it’s a lie and you come with me, what’s the worst that can happen? You wake up back here, you’re still trapped? Great, nothing’s changed. But if I’m telling the truth—and I am telling the truth, Cas, I <em>am</em> —and you don’t <em>listen to me</em>;” he swallows. This is a gamble, or at least it feels like one. But if Cas had been honest in the big damn speech Dean tries his damndest not to think about, it’s at least even odds it will work, and Dean will take any bet if it means getting Cas out of here. “If it’s me, and you don’t listen, I get stuck in here, too. Are you willing to take that risk?” </p><p>Castiel cocks his head and looks at him, birdlike, for a few frozen beats. Dean does his best to look forthright, which usually makes him look constipated. From the wry turn of Cas’ lips, this time’s no exception. He feels his face fall. “Please,” he says quietly. “I need you to trust me. <em>Please</em>.” </p><p>That shouldn’t be what does it, really. He’s given Cas approximately negative 20 reasons to trust him in the last few months. But something pinches behind Cas’ eyes, and he lowers them for a moment, considering; when he looks up, they are shadowed but determined. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s go.” </p><p>Dean’s knees almost buckle from the weight of his relief. “<em>Thank you</em>. Okay. Uh, here’s the thing.” Castiel’s brows begin to creep down again, so Dean talks fast. “Jack made the rift, right, but the Empty’s been on lockdown since the last time he busted you out, and he said it’s not so simple anymore. That rift—only a human soul can pass through it. Or something shaped like one.” </p><p>And there it is: the Catch. </p><p><em>“Grace can take many shapes,” Jack had explained. “It’s malleable and shifting by nature. You just need to get Castiel’s grace to take the shape of a human soul. Like—trying to pull a square peg through a round hole, Sam told me that one, except the square peg is made of silly putty but also sort of bees?” (“</em>Bees<em>?” Dean had said, eyes wide, but the kid had steamrolled past it.) “So if you pull it through, you can get it past the round hole just fine, because it will make itself round! But it will take a constant pull, and a firm connection.” </em></p><p>
  <em>He’d finally stopped to take a breath, and his face turned more serious than Dean had ever seen it. “So you can’t let go. Even when it stings.” Mistaking Dean’s wide eyes for confusion, he had helpfully added, “Because it is also bees.” </em>
</p><p>“He, uh. He wasn’t sure what that would mean when you come out the other side. So you should know that you might be human again, ok? Jack doesn’t know if he can reshape the silly putty or not.” Dean waves a hand when Cas raises an eyebrow. “His words, not mine. So, um, you’d be taking a chance on that. But it’s better than being here, right?” He pretends not to notice how desperate his voice sounds. <em>Coming back human is better than being trapped here as an angel, right, Cas? </em>And an even smaller voice, buried in the back of his mind:<em> Could that be worth it? To come back to me? Could </em>I<em> be worth it? </em></p><p>The oil slick has solid tendrils, now. It grasps at both of their ankles, begins to slowly climb their legs, and Dean is back in the bunker, watching it wrap its slimy, oozy self around Cas. He was too weak to do anything then, but now he rips his feet away from the floor and kicks at the base of the largest tendril slipping its way up Cas’ leg. It lashes backwards. “Stay off him,” Dean snarls at it, and when he looks back up, Cas is staring at him. He blushes. “It was, uh. Getting handsy.” </p><p>He clears his throat, and Cas. Cas <em>smiles</em> at him. Not a grin—it’s just one side of his mouth lifting for a moment, there and gone so fast that if he’d blinked he’d have missed it—but it’s the best damn thing he’s ever seen. </p><p>“If that is so,” Cas says, “It won’t be easy. My grace—all grace—is not made to be bound. It will not want to conform to a single shape.”</p><p>Dean nods. “Jack said that if—that with a, a firm pull and a constant connection, I should be able to bring you through, but that the process would be. Tricky?” </p><p>“If this is real, and not a clever invention,” Cas begins. Dean rolls his eyes, “then I suspect it will not be so simple as my grace settling into the necessary form. It will likely…” he purses his lips, pondering. Dean knows that look. God, he’s missed that look. “I suspect it will struggle, that it will see you as a snare it must be freed from and the binding necessary to pass through the rift as an imminent threat. It may take any number of forms, without my intent.” A small crease of worry appears between his brows. “If you are real. It may hurt you.” </p><p>“I don’t give a fuck” rips from his mouth, more fiercely than he’d intended. “I came here for you. All of you. No matter what that means.”</p><p>The Empty is well and truly roiling, now, and Dean becomes aware of a sound on the horizon of his awareness; something like a scream. He knows in his core that it’s now or never, and he crosses quickly to Cas. It’s the closest they’ve been since—<em>since</em>, and as Dean stares pleadingly into his face, something relaxes in it. Something like acceptance.</p><p>“Then hold me fast, and fear me not,” Cas says solemnly, and reaches for Dean.</p><p>—</p><p>For the first couple of seconds, it’s the most uncomfortable hug of Dean’s life. </p><p>Cas grasps his shoulder (Dean is <em>not thinking about it</em>) to reel him in, and his other arm wraps around Dean’s waist. Quick, sure movements that Dean doesn’t know how to respond to or counter. Where the fuck do you put your hands when you hug someone? His stay at his sides for a beat before he forces them to unclench and slowly wraps his arms around Cas’ back. He’s so busy telling himself <em>just hold onto him, be fucking normal for once in your goddamn life, Jesus Christ</em> that he almost misses the dropoff of that distant scream, the freezing of the tendrils, the calm before the storm. But he could not possibly miss Castiel’s rough, warm voice in his ear, saying “Dean, <em>now</em>,” and he remembers himself and takes a step back into the light of the rift just as the Empty explodes to life around them, tendrils lashing towards them with terrifying speed. A sound like the screams of the damned echoes with sudden violence and fury.</p><p>The tendrils are beat back as Castiel, with his usual remarkable timing, bursts into flames.</p><p>Jack had tried to warn him; Cas had tried to warn him. It’s still a shock that the flames burn, because for all their complicated history, Dean never really expects Cas to hurt him. But even as his hindbrain shrieks and demands he shrink away, a louder, firmer voice says, <em>This is it. If you are not careful, this will be the moment you lose him for good, </em>and Dean grits his teeth and wraps his arms more tightly around what is now a shapeless pillar of flames. </p><p><em>I’m only here as a soul,</em> he reasons with the screaming in his head.<em> My body is fine. None of this will stick. </em>It doesn’t stop him from gagging at the smell of his own burnt flesh, but that’s its own kind of familiar. His soul has withstood worse before, when the cause was worthy, and it’s worthy as hell now—no pun intended, hah. For a few long breaths his whole world narrows to the crackling of flame, the blistering of skin, the stretch of the rack and Alistair’s laughter, or perhaps the weight of his most important person in his arms as he runs as quickly as his small legs can carry him away from the only home he’s ever known—</p><p>And all at once there’s a shift, and though he is still burned he is no longer holding fire, but a great wolf, balanced on its hind legs with its paws on his chest. The claws dig in and drag down as it snarls in his face, its breath hot and fetid, saliva dripping from its open maw. He jerks his head back but his burnt fingers curl tightly into matted fur. “Come on, you think you can scare me?” he asks, breathless. “I’ve seen worse on milk runs.” The wolf snarls again, and it’s echoed by the continuing cacophony of the Shadow around them, and Dean takes another step back, pulling as hard as he can. </p><p>Another shift, and he’s pulling an immobile tower of vines now, bursting with thick, needle-sharp thorns. He cries out as they pierce his hands, his wrists, his arms, straining against them as he is. It takes a long, painful moment to catch his breath, but when he does, he huffs out a laugh. “What do you think this is, Sleeping Beauty?” Of course he immediately feels like slapping himself at the implications, but bluster has gotten him this far, so he adds “You’re gonna have to try harder than that,” and grits his teeth and tugs. </p><p>He can feel the thorns push all the way through his palms, and he grits his teeth against crying out or vomiting, the sensation bringing a sudden surge of nausea. The vines are rooted into the ground—or what passes for ground—pretty firmly, but he can feel a bit of give, so he <em>heaves—</em> </p><p>It continues, time out of time. Cas’ grace is a snake the size of a bear, a thundering waterfall, an insubstantial cloud, a heaping mound of stone. Dean tightens his grip and inches ever backwards, struggling step by torturous step towards absolution. </p><p>He only loosens his grip once, right at the end: when Castiel takes what Dean recognizes immediately as his true angelic form. It’s not because he’s afraid; he knows Cas, knows the best of him and the worst of him, and there is no shape Cas could take that would repel him. There’s no pain, either; not like the fire, or the thorned vines. It’s just—Castiel in his true form is so indescribably massive that for a moment, he cannot comprehend how this being is contained in his embrace—and his arms, convinced that they cannot possibly be holding this vastness, begin to fall away—</p><p>He catches himself, and locks his right hand around his left wrist, keeping the impossibility of Castiel drawn close within the circle of his arms. “I’m not letting go,” he says fiercely. He doesn’t know if Cas can hear him—and he’s not really sure if he’s talking to Cas, or the Shadow still screaming at his back. “Not this time. I won’t let go again.”</p><p>They linger there a moment, one incomprehensible and one unyielding, as the world seems to hold its breath. For perhaps the first time, Dean truly understands what it means that the being in his arms has seen the birth and death of countless centuries, has known the creation of the Earth and the exaltation of the stars. He is a sea creature trying to hold the ocean in his arms, and somehow, against all odds, he is succeeding. It’s humbling, and breathtaking, and for a moment he genuinely thinks he might cry.</p><p>And then it passes, and when Cas shifts again, Dean knows before he feels the shape of the body in his arms that it’s the last time. There is something so final as Cas’ true form melts away; something like the sensation of a bell being tolled, a door being closed, a choice being made. For a moment, his mouth tastes of graveyard dirt, and he is back at the crossroads in the dark, pressing his lips against his last best bad option.</p><p>But the body in his arms is no demon-puppeted woman in a slinky dress. It is achingly familiar, and it should be, because he has held it on Earth, in Purgatory, in Heaven, and now in the Empty, which no one is meant to see and leave. It’s too much, all of a sudden, too real; though he keeps his arms clasped tight, Dean closes his eyes before he can see the look on the face he’s crossed dimensions for. “Come on,” he says (begs), as he leans back towards the light. “Let’s go <em>home</em>.”</p><p>... and he is falling, <em>they</em> are falling, and he keeps his arms locked so tightly around Cas that he’s certain the impact will shatter him as the world dissolves and goes strange around him—but he hasn’t let go yet, and he certainly won’t now.</p><p>—</p><p>His eyes are still closed when he comes back to his body, when the movement somehow stops and he becomes aware of the concrete floor pressing up against his knees, the cold air of the bunker against his unmarred body, the warmth against his front, the breath in his ear, the rumble in the chest pressed to his as a cherished voice says wonderingly, “Dean-“</p><p>He opens his eyes.</p><p>He only just takes in the face in front of him before he buries his own in the crook of Castiel’s neck. Unstoppable tears of relief dampen a familiar collar as he finally releases the hold he has on his own wrist, only to clutch his hands in the fabric of the trenchcoat at Cas’ shoulder blades. Where his wings would begin, Dean realizes abstractly, if he weren’t human now, or something like it. </p><p>“Hey, Cas,” he says, his voice thick and muffled by fabric and skin. “Long time no see.”</p><p>Tentative arms reach around him; hesitant fingers curl against the shirt on his back, mirroring his own. “Dean,” Cas repeats, sounding solidly shocked this time. “That was real. You came for me.”</p><p>“‘Course I did,” he grumbles, taking a moment to savor what feels like his first deep breath in a month. “That’s what we do.”</p><p>“Dean,” Cas says again. The shock seems to be wearing off and the timbre of his voice cuts a fine line between worry and anger, but that’s alright. Dean feverishly thinks that Cas yelling at him will be the most fun he’s had since before they killed God, and lets out a bark of hysterical laughter. Oh, maybe he has the shock, now. Did Cas pass it to him?</p><p>“Dean. What did you do?” That’s a bucket of ice water. He lifts his head and leans back just enough to look Cas in the eyes (his <em>eyes</em>)—</p><p>“I told you,” Dean says. “I told you down there, that it would have to be—that you couldn’t pass through as an angel. You remember, right? You knew what you were agreeing to. Didn’t you?”</p><p>He needs Cas to say yes. God, if he doesn’t say yes, if Dean made him maybe-irrevocably <em>mortal</em> without his okay, if he didn’t know what he was getting himself into, Dean doesn’t know how he’s going to live with himself, what he’s going to do—</p><p>“Yes,” Cas says, and Dean’s gut unclenches. “But what did you do? How did you get there? What did you trade?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Dean says, and at the look Cas gives him, he feels a scowl crawl across his face. “Really Cas, nothing. I told you, Jack made me a way in. You’re the only one who had to give something up.” He can’t hold Cas’ gaze anymore, and finds his eyes drawn down to his tie. It’s crooked, and without direct input from his brain, his hands finally unclench from Cas’ back (have they been there this whole time?) and move to straighten it. Then the sheer ridiculousness of this moment, of kneeling on the floor clinging to Cas like some kind of weeping widow, of trying to <em>fix his tie</em>, kicks in, and Dean rocks backwards to sit on his heels, rubs a hand over his face. “Jesus, Cas, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas says (though he has the charming little pinch at the corner of his mouth that he always gets when Dean blasphemes). “I am not ungrateful, but the thought of you trading yourself for me-“</p><p>“Well, at least I’d tell you,” Dean snaps, and oh, this is anger now, hot and fast and clean. “If I made a deal I’d tell you, Cas, not spring it on you at the last possible fucking second-“ </p><p>“Forgive my concern,” Cas volleys back, voice rising,   “but we are alone here, Dean, and I don’t know why you would be so foolish as to attempt this by yourself if there weren’t something you were keeping from Sam-“</p><p>Dean throws his hands in the air and gets to his feet. “It was a risky plan, so sue me, I didn’t need Sam bitching at me the whole damn time! That doesn’t mean I’m keeping some big secret—and don’t you think you’re getting out of this, you—you hypocritical secret-keeper!” </p><p>Cas, still kneeling, spreads his hands wide. “And what would you have done if I’d told you, Dean? Run yourself ragged looking for a way out? I couldn’t risk Jack, and I didn’t see the point in watching you circle the drain—” Dean sputters—“and speaking of Jack, if he opened this rift, where is he?” Cas peers around urgently, like Jack might pop out from a corner that doesn’t exist in this empty room. “Is he safe?” </p><p>“He’s <em>fine</em>,” Dean snaps; “what, do you really think I’d risk him?” Cas’ face is abruptly, purposefully blank, and Dean probably (definitely) deserves that, but he still reels back as if from a blow. “Geeze, Cas, tell me how you really feel.” And <em>that</em> is the wrong thing to say, because the easiest place to open the rift to the Empty had been the room where it had opened once before, where Cas had <em>said</em> how he really felt, where Dean had lost him. Dean feels the blood drain from his face and he crosses his arms against his front to hold himself together. “It’s—look, Jack is <em>fine</em>, he just couldn’t stay. He had important God business to attend to, said he’d be watching over us to see how it went and he’d be back as soon as he could.” </p><p>“God business,” Cas repeats sharply, trying and failing to stumble to his own feet, unused to being back in his (<em>human</em>, Dean’s mind sings) body. “Chuck? You let him go <em>alone</em>? We have to—”</p><p>“God is dead, Jack is God, Sam and Eileen and Claire and everybody else are fine, we can talk about it <em>later</em>,” Dean snarls. “You’re not getting out of this that easily.” He draws in a shaky breath; Cas peers up at him, startled into silence. “You <em>left</em>,” he says, and forces himself to ignore the way his voice sounds. Cas says his name quietly, and he shakes his head. “No! We were—there were so many things—I was a <em>dick</em> to you, and I thought I had time—there was supposed to be <em>time</em>, to make it up to you, to—to figure out how to explain, and you just—you <em>left me</em>.” His face is burning. Cas’ eyes are wide. </p><p>“I didn’t want to go,” he says quietly. </p><p>“Could have fooled me,” Dean replies, but there’s no real heat in it. Cas shakes his head. </p><p>“I never wanted to go,” he says, and there is an ache in his voice that Dean is all too familiar with, because it’s been his constant companion for longer than he’d care to admit. “Every time, every single time, I wanted to stay. But you of all people know that sometimes, we have to make sacrifices to save the people who matter most, even if… even if.” Cas closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, that gentle half-smile is back. Dean’s heart clenches. “And—you never had to explain. I understood.” Dean opens his mouth, and Cas holds up a hand. “I’m not saying you didn’t hurt me, because you did. Greatly. But. We’ve hurt each other before, Dean Winchester. I know your soul, and even when you have aimed your worst barbs at me, I have known the goodness at your core.”</p><p>“Well <em>you</em>,” Dean says, crossing to Cas and pulling him roughly to his feet, “asshole, are one to talk, okay? You are the best person I have ever known, you <em>dick</em>. You saved me when there was nothing worth saving, and you kept on doing it, no matter the cost.”</p><p>“Dean, you don’t have to do this,” Cas says quietly, his expression small and miserable. Dean feels sick to his stomach, because he can see that Cas knows that what Dean’s saying isn’t just in response to the here and now. It’s also in response to the last words Cas said in this room, the ones Dean was too frozen up and terrified of to reply to, and from the look on his face Dean knows that Cas thinks he doesn’t—and what kind of miserable excuse of a human being is he if Cas doesn’t know that he—if Cas really never saw that he— </p><p>“No, Cas, apparently I do, because you don’t seem to get it!” Dean shouts, because if he doesn’t yell, he’s going to cry, and isn’t <em>that</em> just the perfect summation of his excellent handle on his emotions. “You said—you told me that you cared about the world because of me. Well, you made my world brighter, ok? You didn’t just bring me out of Hell, you brought me out of my lowest points and made life seem worth living because hey, maybe my parents are dead again and Sam is doing the kind of stupid shit that only an idiot brain as big as his could come up with, but Cas has never, I don’t know, had a goddamn <em>Dorito</em> before, and I’m gonna get to see the look on his face when he gets the stupid powder all over his hands, and he’s gonna say something ridiculous about how humans make no sense and it’ll make everything feel normal, feel <em>okay</em> for a minute, and he’s going to keep giving and giving and <em>giving</em> so fucking <em>much</em> of himself for us and humanity and <em>me</em> and the <em>world</em> that—Jesus Christ, you called me selfless, have you ever used a fucking mirror?" </p><p>He laughs, but it’s not funny. “No one has ever done as much for me as you have. No one has ever given as much of a <em>shit</em> about me as you have, even when I’m being a fucking dickhead. You never stop trying, and I don’t know who I am without you anymore, and I don’t want to, alright?”</p><p>Cas opens his mouth but Dean barrels on, because if he doesn’t get this out now, he’s never going to, even if the problem is: “I don’t know how to say it. I can’t—I try and I just—it’s not—but you know, don’t you? You have to know. You can—you could practically hear my thoughts, sometimes, you’ve gotta know.” Somehow he’s gotten closer to Cas; somehow his hands are fisted in the lapels of the trenchcoat he fished out of a lake and carried with him for endless days. Cas’ eyes are so very, very blue. “You’ve gotta know that it’s me too, okay? It’s me too.”</p><p>“Dean,” Cas says gently, and brings a hand up to (he refuses to think a word as soft as “cradle”) cup his face. Dean thinks from the crinkles at the corners of his eyes that Cas is smiling, but he can’t look away for long enough to check. </p><p>“You have to be done leaving me,” Dean says, and though he’s mortified to hear his voice break, he can’t seem to stop talking. “I can’t take that shit anymore, okay?” </p><p>Cas doesn’t complain that he could say the same (he could) or tell Dean to stop with the soap opera shit (he should). He just says “Okay,” quiet and steady and sure. And there’s nothing Dean can say to that particular kindness, so he kisses Cas instead.</p><p>The few times he’d let himself think about it (as opposed to the many times he’d stopped himself), he’d assumed it would be weird. Kissing another man (it’s been a while, and he’d mostly tried to bury those memories), kissing an angel (... it’s been a while, and he’d mostly tried to bury those memories)—any time he’d considered it, it had been fraught with awkwardness, and he’d quickly pulled the mental plug.</p><p>But in reality, he doesn’t think about the fact that he’s kissing a man, or that he’s kissing someone who’s not quite human (no matter the shape of his newfound soul). Those demons might rear their heads another day, but right now, all he’s thinking about is kissing <em>Cas</em>, who feels like coming home.</p><p>Cas kisses like he argues; slow and then heated, incredibly deft at pushing all of Dean’s buttons, determined to make a point and smugly self-satisfied when he thinks he’s won. Dean can’t bring himself to mind, not when he’s having the best kiss of his life.</p><p>They don’t pull apart until air becomes a necessity. Cas presses their foreheads together. His hands have snuck around Dean’s back again. For a long moment, the only sound is their ragged breathing. </p><p>Eventually, Cas says, “I didn’t know. But I do now. Thank you. For this, and—you came for me, and you held on, and you brought me back. Thank you.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, I’m selfish like that,” Dean says hoarsely. He feels like he would float out of the bunker if Cas’ hands weren’t holding him down. “I wasn’t finished with you yet. And I don’t intend to be.”</p><p>“Nor I you,” Cas says, and even with his eyes closed Dean knows he’s smiling this time. He can hear it in his voice.</p><p>“So hold me fast and fear me not,” Dean says, and he means it to be a quip, means to lighten the mood, but it comes out soft and solemn and much too honest, and he can feel himself instantly flush. “I mean- that’s not-“</p><p>Cas, bless him, stops his fool mouth with a kiss.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I haven't completed a piece of writing since like, 2018 max, so I guess thanks for the inspirational chaos SPN?</p><p>come yell about gay angels and angry car men (and 8000 other things with no rhyme or reason) on <a href="https://starry-eyed-guttersnipe.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> with me!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>